what an irrelevant and outdated institution the Commonwealth is......
AFP - Zimbabwe has declared it will leave the Commonwealth after the group of mainly former British colonies ended three days of divisive squabbling and decided to keep sanctions on the renegade state.
"This is unacceptable. This is it. It (Zimbabwe) quits and quits it will be," President Robert Mugabe was quoted as saying in a statement released to AFP by the information ministry.
The ministry said Mugabe had made the announcement when the presidents of Nigeria, South Africa and Jamaica telephoned him to tell him of the Commonwealth's decision.
It said the three leaders had tried to persuade Mugabe to keep his southern African country within the 54-nation body. But Mugabe had said Zimbabwe's continued suspension was unacceptable.
Commonwealth leaders meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja agreed on Sunday to maintain the 20-month-old suspension of Zimbabwe after a row that threatened to split the organisation along racial lines.
Zimbabwe had been kept out of the Commonwealth since March last year because of an election which saw the veteran Mugabe voted back into office for a fifth time amid widespread vote-rigging and violence.
Members of the so-called "white Commonwealth", including Britain, pushed for Zimbabwe to be kept out of the group, pitting them against countries such as South Africa which wanted it to be reinstated at the summit in Abuja.
Mugabe, once hailed as the liberator of his country from British rule in 1980, is now accused of human rights abuses, political repression and a controversial land policy that has helped drive his country to the brink of ruin.
Commonwealth leaders decided Zimbabwe would remain suspended for an indefinite period, subject to review by Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo and a six-nation committee.
"We will watch the situation in Zimbabwe very carefully. If things are moving the way I think they are moving I will be talking in terms of months rather than years," Obasanjo told reporters.
Furious at his exclusion from a summit on African soil, the 79-year-old Mugabe seized on the occasion to score political points at home, launching fiery tirades against white member states.
Sunday's move has pushed Zimbabwe further into international isolation, without a voice in the Commonwealth -- a body representing some 1.7 billion people -- and threatened with expulsion from the International Monetary Fund.
Mugabe is now in charge of a country in the grip of its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980. It faces desperate food shortages caused in part by Mugabe's controversial programme to seize white-owned farms and distribute the land to blacks.
The sharp divisions over Zimbabwe overshadowed the summit hosted by Obasanjo, the former dictator turned elected leader whose country was only allowed back into the Commonwealth four years ago after decades of military coups and brutal dictatorships.
The arguments continued right through a two-day closed door retreat, delaying the departure of British Prime Minister Tony Blair for London and holding up a planned news conference by two hours.
British officials said South African President Thabo Mbeki -- whose country withdrew from the Commonwealth in 1961 after the former apartheid regime was criticised by member states -- had long insisted that Zimbabwe should be readmitted immediately.
The panel that will review Zimbabwe's status comprises the leaders of Canada, Australia, India, Jamaica, Mozambique and South Africa. According to a declaration presented to reporters by Obasanjo and Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon, the panel will be given an indefinite lifespan and have a Jamaican chair.
Once Obasanjo is convinced Zimbabwe has taken steps to conform to the Commonwealth's principles of democracy and human rights, the panel will be asked to review the situation before referring it to the full Commonwealth.
Eleven mainly African members had voted on Friday against McKinnon's re-election as secretary general, in a move which Blair and others described as a protest over the so-called white Commonwealth's treatment of Zimbabwe.
"The vast majority of countries, black or white or Asian, are in favour of continuing the suspension because we can see that Zimbabwe is so clearly in breach of all the principles the Commonwealth stands for," he said.
"This is not a black-white issue at all."
With Zimbabwe still looming large, remaining Commonwealth leaders in Abuja are set on Monday to tackle other issues on their agenda, including efforts to promote democratic ideals, forge a common position on global trade and HIV/AIDS.
